Bleacher Report Predicts Rockets to Post Identical Record This Season

The Houston Rockets surprised virtually everyone in 2024-25. No one had expectations of them winning 52 games.

Or finishing second-best in the Western Conference. Just a year before, the Rockets weren't even a play-in team.

They won 41 games and finished 11th in the Western Conference.

And brought back the exact same roster into 2024-25.

Why would anyone expect a team to take that much of a leap?

This season, however, the stakes are different. The team added one of the game's greatest players of all time in the offseason, in Kevin Durant. Amen Thompson proved to be one of the best defenders in the NBA, despite being tabbed as a project when he was drafted just one year earlier.

Alperen Sengun made an All-Star leap, officially emerging as one of the best centers in the league, certainly one of the best passing big men.

So what can one expect from this group this season? According to Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes, the Rockets could be primed for yet another identical 52-30 win season.

Hughes explained his reasoning.

Fred VanVleet's torn ACL will hurt the Houston Rockets' bottom line, but perhaps not as much as you think.

Reed Sheppard and Amen Thompson will get every opportunity to prove they can handle the point in FVV's absence, and it certainly won't hurt that Kevin Durant will be on the receiving end of their setups.

The Rockets are going to have one of the best defenses in the league, and their core—Thompson, Sheppard, Jabari Smith Jr., Alperen Sengün and Tari Eason—are all at ages where improvement should be the expectation.

Houston is going to crest the 50-win mark for the second straight year, even without VanVleet running the offense.

The Rockets were already thin at the guard spot, prior to VanVleet's injury. In spite of all of their offseason activity, that's the one position that wasn't addressed. This is because the franchise had been banking on Reed Sheppard's organic development and ability to fill that void.

His long-range shooting will also be important for a Rockets team that's ranked in the bottom ten of the league in that department in each of the last two years.

Dorian Finney-Smith was a key pick-up for the Rockets, but he's going to miss time at the onset, due to injury, which could lead to even more minutes for Tari Eason, who is in a contract year.

50 wins is certainly feasible for a Rockets team featuring Durant, Sengun, and Thompson. For what it's worth, the writer's projected win total for the Rockets ranks fourth in the entire Western Conference, which also seems viable.